But that is not to say students and teachers can't find fault with the new schools.
Michael Corbin, who has taught this year's seniors for the past four years, said the school is far better than the comprehensive high schools. But he said that's not much of a comparison - those schools were considered a failure.
He said he understands why Savage looks at her middle school friends, many of whom dropped out long ago and have given birth, and is grateful she is going to college. But he said he believes more needs to be expected of students than just getting through.
Senior Paul DiMatteo will attend the Johns Hopkins University next year. He is one of a tiny number of students Hopkins has accepted from the city's non-selective high schools in the past few years. "He made it to Hopkins, and it makes me joyous, but I know we didn't give him a physics class or a fourth-year math class," Corbin said. "It is a victory that they graduated, but is it a victory that they got 750 on their SAT scores and they were put on a wait list at Coppin?"
DiMatteo said he recognizes faults in his high school, and he said only a few classes were challenging. But, he said, his teachers saw something in him he believes would have been missed if he had gone to a larger school.
"I wouldn't have gotten where I am today. I don't see myself getting into Hopkins if I had gone to any other school," he said.
ACCE and the other innovation high schools have had advantages that other high schools have not. An Urban Institute study concluded after reviewing the records of students who went there and other schools that the innovation schools had a slight edge in terms of their students' academic level. Also, Laura Weeldreyer, who oversees charter and innovation schools for the school system, said the schools are getting students who chose to go there, suggesting they might be more motivated than the average city student.
This year, for instance, 720 eighth-graders applied for 100 spaces in next year's ninth-grade class at ACCE, according to Zahrt. They were chosen by lottery, and even though they might enter with significant academic deficits, they want to be there.
"I think the school system's role now is to figure out what were the conditions that made the innovation high schools a success. ... It is distilling the lessons learned," Weeldreyer said.
liz.bowie@baltsun.com
To read the parting thoughts of seniors graduating from ACCE, go to http://acce123.org/wordpress.
